Drabinko questions canonical dignity of OCU “hierarchs”

The "hierarchs" of the OCU with "impeccable canonical dignity" Simeon (Shostatsky) and Alexander (Drabinko) at the "Unification Council" of the OCU. Photo: Facebook Drabinko.

Ex-metropolitan of the UOC Alexander (Drabinko) considers himself one of the founders of the OCU with "impeccable canonical dignity", thanks to which the OCU was established as a church structure. He stated this in the comments on the post of Ilya Bey on Facebook.

Commenting on the post of Ilya Bey on the concelebration of Metropolitan of the UOC Varsonofy (Stoliar) with Bishop Gerasim of Melnik in the Cathedral of St. Sofia, Drabinko wrote that this “MP-trumpets should not be blown”.

In response to this, the cleric of the OCU Sergey Gorbik noted that people like Drabinko should “refrain from criticizing the MP, which gave them everything from the rank to prosperity”, since he (Drabinko – Ed.) did not fight for canonicity, was not interested in schismatics and "came at the last hour."

In turn, ex-metropolitan of the UOC Alexander (Drabinko) asked Gorbik if the members of the OCU would have “everything they have today if it hadn’t been for me”? In addition, he said that he was the owner of “impeccable canonical dignity”, clearly hinting that members of the OCU from the former UOC-KP and UAOC cannot boast of such dignity.

The blogger Alexander Voznesensky believes that this statement “directly implies that Drabinko is very skeptical of the canonical dignity of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and it follows directly from his own words that the representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople had the same doubts, and only the infusion of two representatives of the UOC solved the issue on granting the status to schismatics.”

Also, according to Voznesensky, "it turns out that the whole struggle of the schismatics for their status is nothing, and only Drabinko ennobled their congregation and enabled schismatic hierarchs with dubious canonical dignity to receive a certain status."

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that ex-metropolitan of the UOC Simeon (Shostatsky) believes that the emergence of a new religious structure is solely his and Alexander (Drabinko’s) merit.

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